Conversation #5 : A people-first approach to digital and European expansion
Digitalisation is gaining pace and opening up new opportunities to gain territory across borders without the need for intermediaries. Term creditor insurance is spearheading CNP Assurances’ campaign, and numerous innovations are being introduced across Europe, including ambitious partnerships, responsive web apps, telemarketing, multi-channel customer pathways, personalisation and efforts to combat exclusions on medical grounds. We take a guided tour.
Conversation between Jean Pascal Garret, Martine Reverberi and David Lattes
Jean-Pascal Garret,
Head of the development of term creditor insurance in Europe, CNP Assurances, Paris
A responsive web app that makes it simpler to market term creditor insurance – that’s the idea behind the successful campaign targeting German customers who generally have little protection for their home loans.
Martine Reverberi,
Chief medical advisor, CNP Assurances, Paris
No longer having to report cured cancers is part of the right to be forgotten. CNP Assurances’ medical department has played a major role in bringing about this progress.
David Lattes,
Deputy CEO at CNP Santander Insurance (Dublin)
The partnership with Santander Consumer Finance has reached another milestone, with directly-marketed personal risk insurance products launched in Italy on a test and learn basis.
A European story
CNP Assurances aims to provide insurance for everyone’s future across Europe, a truly vast mission. In mortgage creditor insurance, for example, over 90% of buyers are covered in France, 50% in Italy, but barely over 30% in Germany. CNP Assurances is determined to provide this protection and is adapting to the European regulations as they shift towards greater transparency and more competition and to the digitalisation of the market, with more and more personalisation evident.
Insurance at your fingertips in Germany
CNP Assurances is already established in Germany in consumer finance and product loans, and it is now moving into insurance for mortgage loans. There is clearly scope to boost take-up of this product in the German market. Death cover is arranged by less than one in two borrowers, and disability cover is barely sold with mortgage loans. CNP Assurances has adopted a digital-led and agile strategy to establish itself as swiftly as possible in the German mortgage creditor insurance market.
Building close relationships digitally in Italy
The partnership with Santander Consumer Finance in creditor term insurance launched in late 2014 for consumer loans created a whole new segment – individual personal risk insurance – and a novel approach to winning business called Go Protect. It has designed customer pathways combined with telemarketing and other fully digital, self-care(1) pathways, which include the option of speaking to an advisor at any time. Go Protect puts customer satisfaction at the very centre of its approach, and a measuring tool is used to identify any weaknesses in pathways and offerings. After its inauguration in Italy in 2016, it was tested and validated on 2,500 contacts, before being rolled out to 60,000 customers and generating over 1,000 personal risk insurance policy sales.
Jean-Pascal Garret,
Head of development of term creditor insurance in Europe, CNP Assurances
The marketing tool – an application that can be used on the move – was built jointly and tested with the brokers of our distribution partner, the BauFisecure network. There were two key points in our specifications: the product had to be simple and work on the go.
The result is a multi-device online distribution system(2) that harnesses CNP Assurances’ expertise and facilitates the sales team’s task of getting to know customers and their needs. Designed as a methodological guide, it incorporates a modelling tool, which can be used as a basis for discussions with customers and to personalise their cover to fit their profile and their plans. The health questionnaire has been simplified and can be signed on the spot. Everything possible has been done to appeal to customers in Germany.
David Lattes,
Deputy CEO at CNP Santander Insurance (Dublin)
The partnership with Santander Consumer Finance is a ground-breaking one – it is pan-European in scale and it uses digital marketing techniques, including very extensive use of data analytics to target potential customers. The potential is vast, as Santander Consumer Finance’s customer base is one of the most impressive in Europe, with over ten million active customers in the countries where we are established. The Italian call centre team was rapidly upskilled thanks to real-time support provided by our teams in Dublin. Harnessing this successful trial in Italy and the new digital tools developed, the Go Protect approach is currently being rolled out in Germany, the flagship country for our partnership, since it accounts for 50% of the consumer finance business with Santander Consumer Finance. The other eight countries will follow suit in 2017 and 2019.
60,000 Italian customers sounded out in the test phase
No need to report cured cancers
The recognition of a right to be forgotten has put an end to onerous medical history declarations, higher tariffs and exclusions for a number of previously much-feared types of cancer. What’s more, a reference grid now lays out for professionals the terms under which insurance cover can be provided for an initial list of chronic conditions. This will be updated based on regulatory changes, medical breakthroughs and epidemiological knowledge.
In line with its goal of making protection accessible, CNP Assurances was one of the first insurers to sign the AERAS agreement (helping those with higher health risks arrange insurance cover and loans) in 2006. CNP Assurances’ medical advisors have been heavily involved in ground-breaking initiatives, such as active participation in the AERAS and Right to be Forgotten work group since 2015 and the Insurance and Cancer discussions led by the French national cancer institute (INCa) over the past five years.
Martine Reverberi,
Chief medical advisor, CNP Assurances
The right to be forgotten is just the beginning. The technical review performed by the industry work groups will continue, establishing a position condition by condition. For example, chronic illnesses presenting profiles with a normal or close-to-normal insurable risk are already being looked at. We need to overcome the technical complexities arising from the diversity of these conditions and their progression. In many cases, there is not sufficient epidemiological data, but the unprecedented efforts by patient advocacy groups are on the verge of changing this. We are gradually drawing together different strands of analysis from both advances in scientific knowledge and a more political reading of trends in society. When you have representatives of patient groups in front of you, they can be highly persuasive. They talk about the trauma of living with a challenging long-term condition for the patient and their close relatives, and about their legitimate desire to put the past behind them. That’s when the work we have done becomes meaningful, and we are really doing our job as a personal insurer focused on individual people.
3.9 million requests for (mortgage and business) loans in one year in France, with 15% subject to higher health risks
Source: Aeras Agreement: 2015 statistics, FFA, October 2016
Simplifying things for policyholders in every possible way
Depending on the amount borrowed and the borrower’s age, a medical examination and lab tests may be requested. CNP Assurances arranges for potential policyholders to undergo these tests at a single location as quickly as possible without any upfront charges by downloading a medical prescription and having the results transferred electronically. An appointment can be set up in three days, and the service is available in 30 towns and cities across France.
(1) System in which customers are able to manage their own account themselves using a website or mobile application, giving them complete autonomy.
(2) can be used on the move on a smartphone or tablet